


Lucidity

by ghostofgatsby



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Injury, M/M, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Scars, Selkies, Shipwrecks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 06:02:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12811209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostofgatsby/pseuds/ghostofgatsby
Summary: When Trott had pulled Smith from the ship wreckage that came ashore during the storm, he'd thought the man to be dead, what with a leg splintered in the wrong direction. Trott didn't ask Smith why he'd been out to sea with a forecast of bad weather; in return, Smith didn't ask why Trott lived alone, so far from coastal cities. Smith had his own secrets, his own scars, and his own stories to rival Trott's. Neither were willing to admit they were hiding- from themselves, or from things they couldn't change.





	Lucidity

**Author's Note:**

> something experimental. let me know what you think. (I have no plans for more at this time.)
> 
> cw: Illness, Injury, Shipwreck, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Scars, mention of blades/knives/surgery (amateur/ medicine/stitching), talk of water/storms?  
> If I need to tag something else, let me know.
> 
> reblog: https://ghostofgatsby13.wordpress.com/2017/11/24/lucidity-ghostofgatsby

"Dark...why was it so dark?"

"What?"

"The sea."

Bright yellow strikes of lightning flickered in the clouds stuffed over the shoreline. Rain poured down from the pitch night sky, pitting the sand stretched between the beach and the cabin. Trott turned from the window. The bedroom was lit by intermittent flashes, but it was enough for him to see by.

Smith lay weakly in the twin-sized bed next to the window, with his feet sticking out over the edge of the mattress. "Why was the water so dark?" he asked throatily.

"I don't know." Trott frowned. He felt the back of Smith's reddened forehead. Smith's skin felt burning to the touch. Worryingly so, to Trott's cold hands.

Smith blinked slowly up at him. Trott tucked chunky knit blankets tighter around his torso and feet.

When Trott had pulled Smith from the ship wreckage that came ashore during the storm, he'd thought the man to be dead, what with a leg splintered in the wrong direction. Especially because he’d heard the crash of debris onto the shore, seen Smith’s unconscious body on the beach, and knew that survival was unlikely. But close inspection revealed otherwise, and so Trott did everything he knew to stabilize him. Smith's leg would need medical attention- _real_ medical attention- but it was a clean break, and he managed to set everything back in place with a makeshift splint and tightly-wrapped bandages.

Smith had told him his fishing catboat had capsized in the turbulent weather that continued to assail them. He was lucky to survive thus far. The Cape was known for being a master of it's domain in storms. But Trott didn't ask Smith why he'd been out to sea with a forecast of bad weather; in return, Smith didn't ask why Trott lived alone, so far from coastal cities.

“The water looked...like a dark, black _emptiness_. Consuming. I’d never seen it look like that...” Smith trailed off. He looked past Trott, somewhere else. Thinking about the shipwreck, maybe. Trott didn’t know. It was hard to tell how coherent Smith actually was. He mumbled often. He was clearly exhausted and in pain, and Trott couldn’t blame him. Trauma did that to people.

A heavy thunderclap shook the wooden floorboards. Trott counted the seconds and glanced towards the window apprehensively. The sharp warning crackle sounded and he was momentarily blinded as bright yellow-white light flashed into the darkened room. He stopped smoothing his hands over blankets and blinked spots from his vision.

It would take days for the storms to pass. Trott had to hope that whatever infection there was in Smith would clear out by then, and not worsen, so Trott could sail them both across to the mainland to get help. He chewed his lip nervously for a moment, internally cursing.

Trott didn’t know if he could deal with the man dying of sepsis after surviving a shipwreck, of all things. In his bed. Depending on him, he supposed. Quietly, he gathered a cold washcloth to try to bring down Smith's rising fever, rinsing a clean rag under the sink in the tiny bathroom, and returning to the bedroom with it in hand. He pressed it to each of Smith's cheeks in turn before laying it over Smith's forehead.

Smith sighed at the cool relief, his blue eyes fluttering shut as Trott brushed sweat-dampened auburn fringe back behind his ears. In the skies above them, thunder grumbled in distant rolls.

"Don't fall asleep on me just yet," Trott warned, trying with false jocularity to cover up his sharp threat in the words. He moved away and took a packet of matches out from his desk drawer, carefully lighting the single oil lamp in the room. The rope wick lit quickly, casting a gold-amber glow from behind the glass chamber.

Trott took down one of his heavy reference tomes off of his bookshelf. His desk chair, a sturdy, reliable wooden one that made a slight creak when it stormed like this, was already placed at Smith's bedside from several nights before. Book heavily in hand, Trott sat down, and the chair whined halfheartedly. He rubbed a hand over his tired face, feeling the annoying prickle of growing stubble he’d neglected to shave away. He hadn’t gotten to it yet- too preoccupied with taking care of Smith to keep up with his own daily routines. The straight razor was the sharpest blade Trott owned. He half feared he’d need to use it for emergency surgery of some kind.

Smith still had his eyes closed. His right hand laid above the blankets, in a loose fist over his chest. A old, thin scar curled on the side of his hand, below his pinkie finger. Trott had seen another on his left hand- a slash across the palm- but he didn’t know what they were from. It could be anything, and yet something in his gut told him it was something dark and difficult.

“Eyes open, Smith, come on,” Trott chided again. He swallowed down his worry.

Smith sighed and opened his eyes, his eyelashes unsticking from his cheeks. His lips upturned at the book in Trott's lap. "Going to read me a bedtime story again, Trotty?"

Trott smirked somewhat regretfully, thumbing through pages. "Not this time, I'm afraid." He laid the large reference book out on his lap, but pulled his feet up off the floor so his heels rested on the wooden rungs of the chair. The paper felt whisper-thin beneath his fingertips. The manuscript was printed in fine black ink- the kind that you knew would bleed in water if damaged.

Trott chewed his lip, reading the passages on what to do in case of sepsis. Grimly, he wished folk and fairy tales healed more than medical textbooks. They were certainly easier to skim and comprehend. He had read some of the myths to Smith the first night the man woke, to try to keep him conscious. Trott wasn't sure what else to do, really, besides the obvious medical treatment to Smith’s broken leg, stitching the more minor cuts and icing bruises. Pleading with someone he didn't know to stay alive seemed like a lost cause. But a story, well. He thought maybe a story was a persuasive reason.

As if reading his thoughts, Smith spoke up, "You know, those stories? The one you read...about the selkie, and the fisherman? I liked that one...”

Trott hummed noncommittally, waiting for Smith to continue talking. He worried the corner of the page he was on with his fingers, folding and unfolding the edge into a triangle. He'd probably need to bookmark this spot for later, and the thought made his stomach sour. _Reading_ this information made him feel sick himself. He never wanted to be a doctor. But... “I would have been dead if you hadn’t...if you weren’t here,” Smith had said when he was barely conscious, when Trott had apologized for his shit medical treatment.  
  
Trott shook himself internally, pushing those thoughts out of his head. He stared at the pages beneath his hands, wanting to close his eyes on it all, and sighed. Think on the now. _Only_ think on the now.

Outside, the rain poured harder. The latches on the shutters and the screen door rattled in their frames. Another drum roll of thunder shook the floor, vibrating up through Trott’s wooden desk chair.

Smith cleared his throat. "You said they- You said they weren't like that. Where you were from."

Trott's fingers froze, curled around the hardback edge of the book.

"I don't think you're from around here,” Smith continued, “That you're a local, I mean- if you're from somewhere else. So I was wondering what they were like. If they were different."

Trott stared at the singular dot of the i in sepsis in the chapter heading. He opened and closed his mouth, wondering what Smith meant. They, who? Where he was from? "Of course they're different," he wanted to say, "They're nothing alike. _I_ was nothing like them." It would be the honest truth.

"The stories, I mean," Smith said, and Trott felt his shoulders relax from the tense position he'd been holding. "Sorry, maybe I shouldn't have asked..."

Trott raised his head and looked up into Smith's tired, concerned face. He winced internally. "It's okay,” he said, trying slowly to phrase what he wanted to say, “You caught me off guard, is all. I don't usually..."

"Talk about it," Smith finished, nodding. “I-” The damp cloth on his forehead shifted from the movement, sliding roughly down the slope of his nose to cover one eye and a corner of his mouth.

Trott couldn’t help but chuckle at his predicament. He closed his textbook and put it back on his desk before sliding the cloth back in position on Smith’s forehead. His hand lingered on Smith’s cheek before he pulled away. The warmth had gone down considerably, enough for Trott to not be worried if he let Smith sleep most of the night straight through.

"As I was saying...before I was rudely interrupted," Smith started again with a rakish grin, "I get it. I don't like to talk about where I'm from either...” His grin slipped momentarily, pain flinching through it from something long ago. “So if there's stuff you want me to lay off on...tell me. Okay?" He gave Trott an earnest look. As earnest as one could look, being ill and looking rather sweaty and out of it.

Trott nodded. Almost on reflex, he folded his hands in his lap, covering one over the well-worn leather band he wore around his wrist. For a moment, Trott counted silently, and told himself to breathe. He rubbed a thumb over the etchings, the scars, the marks that had faded- and not- into the skin of it. “To answer as simply as I can...” he said, trying not to hunch his shoulders inward on himself, “Yes. I picked up that book of stories in a shop somewhere, and the origins of the stories themselves are much different than stories from where I’m from.”

Smith settled his head back a little more in the pillows, careful not to disturb the cloth on his forehead. The linens were pale sky blue, and it matched the color of his eyes. Trott had done his best to redress him in new clothes- threadbare pajamas of Trott's that were old and stretched out- though too short on Smith, unfortunately. It was mediocre, like everything else, but it would have to do.

"Are you in any pain?" Trott asked, glancing at the various painkillers lined up on the opposite side of the desk where the oil lamp was, "How's the leg?"

He watched as Smith swallowed heavily, closing his eyes for a long moment. "I haven't moved it around, really, so I'm sure it's fine." His voice was tight.

Trott didn't want to give that comment a thought, but... "Can you still feel it?" he asked gently.

Smith barked a harsh, short laugh. "Yes. I can wiggle my damn toes, Trott."

"Okay." Trott nervously chewed his lip again, and restrained himself from reaching for his books again. He needed to get what sleep he could tonight, too. He leaned over the desk and snuffed out the oil lamp, sending the room into darkness. For a long moment, Trott stood there, staring at the minimal cover of the medical textbook on his desk. He sighed and raised his head. "I'll let you get some sleep, and I'll wake you sometime around dawn. If you need anything, yell, okay?"

In the outline of the shadows, Smith yawned. "Yeah. Thanks...Trott."

Trott hummed his assent, moving the chair slightly out of the way of the bed should Smith accidentally hit it with his arm in his sleep or something. He made towards the doorway into the other room of his cabin, where he’d be sleeping on the couch.

"Trott? Maybe..." Smith murmured, trailing off.

Trott paused in the open doorway, looking back. A lightning flash briefly illuminated Smith in bed with his head turned away from Trott's line of sight. His hand shifted on the blankets, from his chest to his side.

"I don't...know if I have fairytales or anything,” Smith said, “But I have stories. Maybe we can trade? I could tell you one...in the morning? There's a place...where the corn grows taller than men, and the air smells of dirt and gasoline. Made of metal-built machines, cutting rivers, and lush woods and orchards. But, if I told you where it is, it'd lose it's magic.”

Trott could hear the smile and the sadness in Smith’s voice, and there’s something in him that wanted to ask why Smith’s bringing this up now, just before they sleep. He waited a moment after to see if Smith had anything else to add, smiling slightly in amusement and uncertainty. But Smith said nothing else. Trott listened hard to try to see if he’d fallen asleep, but he wasn’t able to tell just by the sound of his breathing. Rain was washing against the side of the house. Steady and soft, it was good white noise to rest to.

"Maybe in the morning," Trott replied at last, slowly backing away from the bedroom, "Goodnight, Smith."

 


End file.
